5432852385743

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“Go on,” Al said. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, buddy. Just go on.” He coughed harshly, then said in a kind of desperate growl: “I need you to do this.” So I did. God help me, I did.
CHAPTER 2 1 I took another step forward and went down another step. My eyes still told me I was standing on the floor in the pantry of Al’s Diner, but I was standing straight and the top of my head no longer scraped the roof of the pantry. Which was of course impossible. My stomach lurched unhappily in response to my sensory confusion, and I could feel the egg salad sandwich and the piece of apple pie I’d eaten for lunch preparing to push the ejector button. From behind me—yet a little distant, as if he were standing fifteen yards away instead of only five feet—Al said, “Close your eyes, buddy, it’s easier that way.” When I did it, the sensory confusion disappeared at once. It was like uncrossing your eyes. Or putting on the special glasses in a 3-D movie, that might be closer. I moved my right foot and went down another step. It was steps; with my vision shut off, my body had no doubt about that. “Two more, then open em,” Al said. He sounded farther away than ever. At the other end of the diner instead of standing in the pantry door. I went down with my left foot. Went down with my right foot again, and all at once there was a pop inside my head, exactly like the kind you hear when you’re in an airplane and the pressure changes suddenly. The dark field inside my eyelids turned red, and there was warmth on my skin. It was sunlight. No question about it. And that faint sulphurous smell had grown thicker, moving up the olfactory scale from barely there to actively unpleasant. There was no question about that, either. I opened my eyes. I was no longer in the pantry. I was no longer in Al’s Diner, either. Although there was no door from the pantry to the outside world, I was outside. I was in the courtyard. But it was no longer brick, and there were no outlet stores surrounding it. I was standing on crumbling, dirty cement. Several huge metal receptacles stood against the blank white wall where Your Maine Snuggery should have been. They were piled high with something and covered with sail-size sheets of rough brown burlap cloth. I turned around to look at the big silver trailer which housed Al’s Diner, but the diner was gone. 2 Where it should have been was the vast Dickensian bulk of Worumbo Mills and Weaving, and it was in full operation. I could hear the thunder of the dyers and dryers, the shat-HOOSH, shat-HOOSH of the huge weaving flats that had once filled the second floor (I had seen pictures of these machines, tended by women who wore kerchiefs and coveralls, in the tiny Lisbon Historical Society building on upper Main Street). Whitish-gray smoke poured from three tall stacks that had come down during a big windstorm in the eighties. I was standing beside a large, green-painted cube of a building—the drying shed, I assumed. It filled half the courtyard and rose to a height of about twenty feet. I had come down a flight of stairs, but now there were no stairs. No way back. I felt a surge of panic. “Jake?” It was Al’s voice, but very faint. It seemed to arrive in my ears by a mere trick of acoustics, like a voice winding for miles down a long, narrow canyon. “You can come back the same way you got
Page 4: Thank you for downloading this Scri
Page 7 and 8: It is virtually not assimilable to
Page 9 and 10: 11/22/63
Page 11 and 12: uddy who had demonstrated the true
Page 13 and 14: PART 1 WATERSHED MOMENT
Page 15 and 16: those little squiggles he put on th
Page 17 and 18: 3 Al’s Diner was housed in a silv
Page 19 and 20: “Long story short, I went to a do
Page 21 and 22: with all that stupid talk about Al
Page 23: toward him. He leaned on the stack
Page 27 and 28: where all the women have big bazonk
Page 29 and 30: a style I recognized (from old movi
Page 31 and 32: off the rest of my beeyah and stood
Page 33 and 34: narrow lane unless they happened to
Page 35 and 36: get-together?’” “Always the s
Page 37 and 38: CHAPTER 3 1 The gnome did indeed ha
Page 39 and 40: But I sat down. 3 “Do you know th
Page 41 and 42: —” He started coughing again, t
Page 43 and 44: down at the backs—that he didn’
Page 45 and 46: I mean.” “Would it have to be k
Page 47 and 48: over again. “I plugged her name i
Page 49 and 50: Stephanie Routhier.” “Just anot
Page 51 and 52: CHAPTER 4 1 Al let me help him into
Page 53 and 54: student work, no teacher does—you
Page 55 and 56: was trying to crawl under the bed.
Page 57 and 58: eyebrows even at a convenience stor
Page 59 and 60: my sorrow. But he’s not dead wher
Page 61 and 62: PART 2 THE JANITOR’S FATHER
Page 63 and 64: hunched his thin shoulders all the
Page 65 and 66: Sabattus? I think that’s it. Do y
Page 67 and 68: the bank. That made me remember the
Page 69 and 70: 6 I got the clothes Al had recommen
Page 71 and 72: The taxi driver was a fat man who w
Page 73 and 74: CHAPTER 6 1 The same chain-smoking
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monocle in one eye and a school pen
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Lemkes, some of them siblings, most
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crocodile. If it keeps up, this bur
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Late that afternoon, hopes dashed (
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clasped. He stoops a little and kic
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seconds, maybe. It was the sort of
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and saw Derry hulking on the west b
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CHAPTER 7 1 How should I tell you a
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He’s a nice man. Always joking ar
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4 On the following Tuesday, I rente
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passing off fantasies like the murd
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oom from the large table where Dunn
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Chaz saw me looking. “Frank knows
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10 I got used to the planes coming
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CHAPTER 8 1 In the weeks before Hal
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One of the people I spoke to was Do
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Trust me on the sickness part. I kn
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smoke, and eye-watering chlorine. T
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Had Tugga given him shit about that
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At first that didn’t compute. The
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That’s a laugh. You want to hear
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If I told him just the right way—
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here like a rabbit in a hole.”
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and dislocated her shoulder as well
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He smiled and closed his eyes. 14 I
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Chevron. I crossed the street towar
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PART 3 LIVING IN THE PAST
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again. “You look like you’ve lo
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throat like a playing card in the s
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6 I made it home, and this time it
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to say. But halfway through the fou
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Sorry, buddy, couldn’t wait. Too
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CHAPTER 10 1 I crossed the employee
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3 I drove up the Mile-A-Minute High
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He and the large lady (Frati looked
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athroom medicine cabinet, and my ne
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stop in spite of a green light, my
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13 There was plenty about the World
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“It’s a simple enough assignmen
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of the land around Bowie Hill, wher
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kind of loony I am, Cullum will be
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CHAPTER 12 1 I took US 1 south. I a
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gossip in the billiard parlor next
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eal BS degree), I heard a psycholog
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protective cover—7 DAYS ONLY, BE
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You’d put your foot on it and cru
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father in his nakedness, and God cu
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his father’s gearshift. I’d jer
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“You come on back around six. Tha
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certain students, and at the librar
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19 We’re going to take another le
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CHAPTER 13 1 It was seven forty-fiv
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Gorgeous girl? Check. Blonde? Check
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was thinking of nothing but this bi
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Three weeks later, just before scho
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“Deke first popped the question a
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working on either of my manuscripts
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I want you to meet. This is—” S
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“He seems to be bearing up,” El
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9 At the game, practically everybod
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PART 4 SADIE AND THE GENERAL
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y a trim little man who wore horn-r
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Dunning, but I can’t say for sure
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“Yes, ma’am.” “That ain’t
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would be seven or eight years from
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The Stroll was the first step Chris
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my Ford steamed up. Then she pushed
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CHAPTER 15 1 At ten o’clock on th
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the grass. Now she picked up a Tupp
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“But keep them handy, honey.” A
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She smiled and kissed the corner of
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“I love you, too. No maybe or mis
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little hysterically. “Mama probab
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tighter, as if hugging could make i
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her jeans, then fumbled in the brea
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“Sadie? Are we all right?” “Y
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“I’ll always listen.” But she
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“The play, then. At least do the
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ever came right out and said so. An
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8 Everybody in town did turn out, a
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was looking for a cheap rent becaus
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“I won’t. Not anymore. So don
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CHAPTER 17 1 A few days before the
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It was the last day of school. The
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you care about it, when you feel li
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something on it. She took it back a
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“I was stupid to come to Fort Wor
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closest thing to fireworks came jus
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I looked at my watch and said, “I
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13 It was almost dark when I got to
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students were wont to say, but West
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“Will you give us a minute?” Ro
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June. I thought Marina might point
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I fought against the temptation to
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one that wasn’t swollen). There w
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I wondered if I were mad. Surely th
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14 There was a moment of silence lo
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good dancer.” “Then let’s go
Page 271 and 272:
“What do you want?” the younger
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ack. I listened to the comment twic
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“I sort of like Kennedy,” Lee s
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ut no takers. Until the Oswalds mov
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Browder Street coffee shop. There t
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cocksuckers right now!” There wer
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I ignored her. This wasn’t the fi
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assumption that people were going t
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She looked at me doubtfully, turned
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CHAPTER 20 1 So in the end it only
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“That turkey looks absolutely won
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it. Then he slugged her. She fell d
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8 The day after Sadie’s Boxing Da
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Walker closed his eyes and raised h
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2 That was on a Friday afternoon, a
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Marina invited her in. I waited unt
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Lee’s footfalls crossed above my
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I looked down and saw a fresh drag-
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I liked George de Mohrenschildt bet
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CHAPTER 22 1 The afternoon of April
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It made a rough trail from the livi
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light, I will kill this bitch and t
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casserole delivery.’ And raise th
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Her eyes widened. She was looking o
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CHAPTER 23 From the Dallas Morning
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“I don’t think I’m quite read
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more. “When this young woman’s
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him wink. Marina and Jeanne lapsed
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then taking a bus or train. And if
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eason for it.” 9 She wasn’t ove
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I moved into Deke’s Spanish-style
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Hunch-think: that again. I paid the
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lock?” “Of course not. Although
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“Only one problem. They’re aski
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“What’s wrong?” she asked.
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Ellen took Sadie—who was exhauste
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“Yes, honey.” “Can you predic
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his house, and I’d attended a few
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DALLAS’S WHITE KNIGHT! According
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CHAPTER 25 1 I stayed with Sadie on
Page 351 and 352:
There was silence on the line while
Page 353 and 354:
He got in and shut the door. “Abo
Page 355 and 356:
Gavery was putting out fresh loaves
Page 357 and 358:
She blushed, except for around the
Page 359 and 360:
“I don’t think that would work,
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Tiger bounded happily to meet him,
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“Yes!” Sadie chirruped, resetti
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For a moment as I sat there in my c
Page 367 and 368:
was me, panting. “I hope he fucki
Page 369 and 370:
I fumbled the .38 out of my pocket
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“Puddentane,” I said. “Ask me
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murder his whole family.” She loo
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I shook my head. “Honey, you’ve
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We were coming into Dallas now. I m
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Yes. He still is. But you’re clos
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“That’s it, and I will.” I ha
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asked after Deke, wished her a good
Page 385 and 386:
again before I got out of his sight
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(Parkland) while O works. Rifle sto
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een a success. According to newscas
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November 20, 1963 Dear Sadie, I hav
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play before the curtain goes up on
Page 395 and 396:
CHAPTER 28 1 11/22/63 (Friday) I sa
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Lee’s murder—we’d simply have
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Cadillac Street. Only you knew that
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Sadie was standing on the curb and
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laid hold of the chrome doorhandle
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scraped her knees. “What time is
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I hurried to it and tried the passe
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“Because it was a girl’s,” I
Page 411 and 412:
stacked book cartons. The overhead
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PART 6 THE GREEN CARD MAN
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exactitude because there was no clo
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happened, Mr. Amberson. I won’t s
Page 419 and 420:
had to stretch my savings. When I g
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“—but he was a world-class fuck
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that dreamlike conversation while t
Page 425 and 426:
something. He would pass it on to E
Page 427 and 428:
“Where you did exactly what?”
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I wrote carefully, but it didn’t
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He offered me the three tickets lik
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CHAPTER 30 1 I stepped off my final
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“They’re saying seven thousand
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“Who are you?” I asked. “And
Page 439 and 440:
“Buying meat over and over again
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painted on the remains of the floor
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good-sized rock in it. That explain
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CHAPTER 31 1 He still lived on Godd
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“Ayuh. That was taken on our twen
Page 449 and 450:
Sure it was. Maybe a Police Special
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“Yes.” The cannula had come ask
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The world well lost for love—was
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Here’s another thing I do know. T
Page 457 and 458:
egin to come. They ache, they burn.
Page 459 and 460:
ex-wife for months. The staff at De
Page 461 and 462:
arber shop is gone, and the Cities
Page 463 and 464:
gone, you can never get it back. Pa
Page 465 and 466:
I’d put the probability at ninety
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Jack, I’m sure you’d understand
Page 469 and 470:
10. If you could pick any other per
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it’s just one of the places where
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20. “In the Mood,” Glenn Miller
Page 475 and 476:
top edge, or just pat back into the
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for 10 minutes. Slide a thin knife
Page 479 and 480:
© SHANE LEONARD STEPHEN KING is th
Page 481 and 482:
The Colorado Kid Cell Lisey’s Sto
Page 483 and 484:
We hope you enjoyed reading this Sc
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